[33] On the West African coast, from Lagos to Cameroon, the master of the house has over his wives a limited, over his male and female slaves an unlimited power (Kingsley, West African studies, p. 439). Among the Bali tribes of Cameroon, female slaves are concubines without any recognized rights. [↑]
[34] See Schmoller, Grundriss, I p. 339. [↑]
[35] Winwood Reade, speaking of the coast tribes of West Africa, from Senegambia to Angola, remarks: “In those places where the slave-buying still goes on, the people are more disposed to go to war, to convict criminals, and to make use of any pretence to procure slaves. And it is also certain that there are regions where an almost constant war is carried on for the purpose of obtaining slaves” (Winwood Reade, p. 291). [↑]
[36] Bagehot, p. 73; see also Ingram, pp. 5, 6. [↑]
[37] Ingram, p. 5; see also Schmoller, Grundriss, I p. 338. [↑]
[38] See Lange, Die Arbeiterfrage, p. 63. [↑]
[39] Such is the case for instance in Cameroon (Hutter, p. 36). Among the Bali tribes of Cameroon the nobles wear their nails long, in order to show that they are not slaves (Ibid., p. 385). See also Westermarck, Moral Ideas, II pp. 272, 273. [↑]
[40] See Ingram, pp. 9–11. All this applies much less to early slavery than to slavery in its more advanced stages. Yet even the patriarchal slave system of primitive societies sometimes has a bad influence on the slaves. Polack, speaking of the New Zealand slaves, remarks: “Debarred from the sight of their relatives, they become reckless of moral feeling.… Obscenity and lying are among the practices most persisted in by the slaves, and to their demoralized state may be attributed the greater part of the wars and dissensions of this irritable people; they may be justly regarded as the greatest drawback to the prosperity and civilization hitherto of the New Zealanders” (Polack, II pp. 58, 59). [↑]